Beginnings
by ElizabethAnnFanfic
Summary: Missing scenes/post-episode fic for The Pilot 1X79. Character development. Interior dialog, but no dialog between characters. Scully and Mulder's feelings upon being paired up.


Timeline: 1x79 Pilot

Category: Post Episode

Description: Character development...so not any real dialog in this one.

The word had come down that a two-year academy teacher, a young woman, was being assigned to him. He didn't like working with a partner, so the news was not met with any enthusiasm on his part. He was a lone wolf. And he was wary of being assigned another partner. He was becoming convinced that there were forces working against him and the X-Files; forces that wanted him to fail and the project to disappear; forces that feared the truth. He'd dug up information on her, so as to know what he was in for: her senior thesis, "Einstein's Twin Paradox: A New Interpretation," was bold. He'd told her when he'd met her that he'd liked it and he did. What twenty-two year old girl had the chutzpah to re-write Einstein? Too bad she was a spy. That's what he'd assumed. Otherwise it would be useful to have someone that bold and savvy scientifically working beside him, his preferences to work alone notwithstanding.

And upon seeing her walk through the door on her first day, he had an additional realization: Dana Scully wasn't just someone that had been bumping around the academy for two years and sent to debunk his work, she was rather attractive. Not his type, mind you. He liked them leggy, brunette, and big busted. Dana Scully was none of those things. She was incredibly petite. He had never dated anyone that he couldn't almost look in the eye. Maybe he'd slept with someone as short as her. He ran mentally through his catalogue. No, not quite that short. And she looked young—incredibly young. Her face was still rounded with youth and she was unpolished in a rather charming way. She looked totally out of place in his office and in the FBI in general.

But, as she walked in and these things ran through his head, he knew there was a fly in the ointment. Who sent a young woman like this to torpedo a man and a project? Wasn't there anyone better suited for the task? It occurred to him that she probably had been chosen for more than her scientific skill. Someone wanted him to let down his guard. Someone wanted him to make a fatal mistake. Maybe it would be in regard to the work. Maybe in regard to her. Either way, she was supposed to be integral to it. So, he'd vowed to be guarded.

He'd tested her right away, whispering, "Do you believe in the existence of extraterrestrials?" Surely they wouldn't send someone that would believe as he did. And surely they wouldn't send someone dumb enough to pretend they did, even to gain his trust. There was no way he'd buy that. And she smiled at him, like it was silly to think such things. At Quantico they didn't think such things. She'd smiled at his announcement of their first assignment together: Oregon. She probably found him very amusing—like a kooky uncle that you see on holidays and who entertains everyone with his zany stories and mildly inappropriate behavior. He wondered if she went home and called her girlfriends to tell them about her new partner who acted as if he was a little off his beam.

Yes, he was cultivating that persona a bit. He'd been called Spooky Mulder in the Violent Crimes Unit for his uncanny ability to profile a murderer. It was downright spooky. Now he was spooky in a different way to his colleagues, since he was searching out those things the FBI would rather go unsolved. If he wanted to hold his new partner at arm's length, then that off-balance persona might serve him well.

* * *

It almost seemed to Dana that her new partner was putting on something of an act. His reception of her in his office, calling himself the FBI's most unwanted and whispering about aliens. His unbelievable calm as they'd nearly shaken apart in the skies above Oregon—almost as if he didn't care whether they were going to plummet from the sky or not. Marking an "X" in the road with spray paint and commenting that it was "probably nothing." He clearly thought this was something, or they wouldn't be reinvestigating an old case. So, she assumed that he was putting on an act for her. She wasn't sure why he wanted her to think he was nuts, but that was what it seemed like he was doing.

She hadn't been lying when she'd told him that she was looking forward to working with him. He was something of a legend in the academy. His solve rate and his unbelievable profiling skills were something that was talked about with reverence. He was absolutely spooky in his ability to find a killer. This was to be her first assignment in the field, and she felt rather privileged to be chosen to work alongside Fox Mulder, even if she had been given the task of tearing apart his theories. She believed in fairness and she wasn't going to undo him so as to promote her own career, she reasoned. If the work needed debunking, she'd debunk it, but if his theories had validity, she would support him one hundred percent. She'd let the science sort it out.

* * *

Why did he feel the need to tell her he wasn't crazy? Wasn't that exactly what he'd hoped she would believe? But there he was, insisting that he wasn't crazy. He knew it was an alien and she thought it was a sick joke. Someone had buried a chimp or an orangutan instead of a human in that coffin, as part of a sick joke. It was no such thing, and he felt compelled to prove it to her. She clearly wouldn't believe him without hard evidence though—an x-ray maybe.

His new compulsion had driven him to knock on her motel door in his running clothes. He'd wanted to see if she'd join him and check if she was now dubious about whether that x-ray showed a deformed chimp with something strange up its nose. No go on both counts. She didn't care to run with him: she was going to sleep. And she wasn't going to lose any sleep over a deformed chimp with something up its nose: because that's all it was to her.

He turned his cap around to face forward as he jogged out of the parking lot and into the enveloping darkness of the street. He wasn't sure why he was determined to win her over to his side. He knew logically that she wasn't going to believe him…that she'd been sent to ruin him. And asking her to go jogging with him late at night probably wasn't the best way to establish distance.

* * *

The crazy act seemed to be wearing off. Yes, his theories were still completely off, but he wasn't acting like someone working very hard at the appearance of crazy. Maybe he'd grown tired of it or maybe he was too engrossed in the case to keep it up. But he still wasn't letting her in. She was being shut out of the case. He knew things that he simply wasn't letting on about and it was making her crazy. She had a temper and she was afraid she was going to let it fly, if he didn't come clean about that girl and how he knew she'd have bumps on her neck.

She was determined to let the facts determine the outcome of her partnership with Fox Mulder. But if he insisted on acting in this frustrating manner, it would become a matter of personality conflict rather than scientific findings. "Little report," she cursed under her breath as she followed him in the parking lot back to their motel. Maybe his saying that cut so deep, because there was some truth to it. She was in fact taking down reports on his findings and they weren't necessarily going to support his theories. But she kept assuring herself that she wasn't the type to tear a man's work down for sport, even if he was an ass—she'd let the science sort it out. Flying saucers were crazy though, and if that's where he continued to go with this, she'd have no choice.

Being soaked from the rain wasn't helping with her mood. She'd been excited at the prospect of being a field agent. Her family had been against it, just as they'd been against her decision not to practice medicine. Too dangerous. A waste. Something like that. Being soaked to the skin and having a partner who insisted they'd just lost nine minutes due to the proclivities of their current zip code didn't seem exciting or glamorous. It was a sloppy let down. It wasn't something she could share with her father and feel proud about it. She needed a hot shower and a long sleep to recover from the disappointment.

* * *

Oh she completely undid him. She undid him the way she appeared in the door, shaking—with the cold, with fear, he wasn't sure which. She'd dropped her robe and demanded that he examine her. He was thrown. Examine what? He gazed upon her pink skin without knowing what to say or do. She gestured at her lower back and he bent down, examining bumps that looked nothing like the bumps he'd seen earlier in the day. His little partner thought perhaps they'd been transported to an alien ship and she'd acquired some bumps as a result. It was completely unarming.

He'd been schooling himself to think of her as a plant, a spy, someone sent to undo his work and ruin his reputation—professionally and perhaps personally. But, in the light of the candle, shivering in front of him, needing him, all of that was undone for the moment. She was all business and straight-laced, science and medicine, facts and figures: to come to his room and drop her robe, she must have been scared out of her mind. She was frightened and she showed it openly. This couldn't be scripted. This couldn't be a manipulation. Not when she looked so young and vulnerable as she slipped into his arms and gripped him tightly. Somehow she'd ended up needing his support, even when he'd been something of an ass for the entirety of the short duration of their partnership. He was completely undone.

Maybe having a partner wouldn't be as bad as he thought it would be. She was smart. She was feisty. She was proving herself in small ways. And he liked her smile. And her laugh. It wouldn't hurt to have that around, even if she was laughing mostly at his insane theories. She also laughed at his 'plausible' joke. He thought perhaps he was becoming a little too morose. Too dark. That smile and laugh could do wonders for him, perhaps.

And so he'd let his defenses down. He'd asked her to stay. She'd accepted, clearly still shaken. She'd curled up on his bed, as if they were long time friends caught in a thunderstorm and power outage. Not two federal agents that should be at cross purposes. He didn't join her on the bed. He'd just seen a little more of Dana's flesh than he'd ever intended on seeing, and he didn't want to make her regret the confidence she'd shown in him as her senior partner. He'd give her a respectful distance by sitting on the floor.

He told her things he never told a soul. He unburdened himself in a very refreshing way. It wasn't messy and unpleasant. Just two friends sharing with each other. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had an instant connection like that with someone. All because of a couple of mosquito bites. Well, that and her embrace. It could have been erotic. Maybe it should have been, but it reminded him of the childish reliance that his sister had often demonstrated in him. And so he'd told her everything, simply, cleanly.

And then she'd said it: "You've got to trust me." Trust. He didn't know that he'd wanted someone to trust in until he heard the robe clad young agent on his bed say that word. She insisted that she wasn't part of the agenda. She wanted to solve the case as much as he did. He watched her face and came closer to the bed, drawn by her presence. He wanted to believe her. He wanted to trust her.


End file.
